What’s Up Doc?: Les Blank, Alex Gibney & Alex Winter Lead SXSW Charge (February 2015)

Now that the busy winter fest schedule of Sundance, Rotterdam and the Berlinale has concluded, we’ve now got our eyes on the likes of True/False and SXSW. While, True/False does not specialize in attention grabbing world premieres, it does provide a late winter haven for cream of the crop non-fiction fare from all the previously mentioned fests and a selection of overlooked genre blending films presented in a down home setting. This year will mark my first trip to the Columbia, Missouri based fest, where I hope to catch a little of everything, from their hush-hush secret screenings, to selections from their Neither/Nor series, this year featuring chimeric Polish cinema of decades past, to a spotlight of Adam Curtis’s incisive oeuvre. But truth be told, it is SXSW, with its slew of high profile world premieres being announced, such as Alex Gibney’s Steve Jobs: The Man In The Machine, Alex Winter’s Deep Web (trailer below) and Ondi Timoner’s Brand: A Second Coming, that have taken over the list this month.

At the tippy top you’ll find a cinematic gem once thought lost and forgotten in A Poem Is A Naked Person, a film by the late, great chronicler of Americana, Les Blank. Shot during the years of 1972 and 1974, A Poem documents beloved singer-songwriter and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Leon Russell in and around his recording in his studio in Oklahoma while working on new material and performing live. With help from Blank’s frequent collaborator Maureen Gosling and his son Harrod Blank, the film has seemingly come back to life with Blank’s signature vérité encapsulation of life’s joys in music and art, in people and creative partnerships. The trailer (below) even boasts of guest appearances by Willie Nelson and George Jones. What more could we ask for from a filmmaker we thought we’d sadly heard the last of?

After having tracked Fredrik Gertten’s line drawing Bikes vs Cars since the success of its Kickstarter campaign back in November of 2013, it’s lovely to see that prior to screening at SXSW, the film will have its world premiere as the opener of Stockholm’s increasingly relevant Tempo Documentary Festival. It’s Gertten’s first feature since the Dole Food Company tried to smother him out of cinematic existence in Big Boys Gone Bananas!*. No less socially incisive, his latest looks to turn our attention toward the global issue of humanity’s detrimental reliance on the personal vehicle and its easiest answer: Bikes. As a daily bicyclist myself, I couldn’t be more excited for my favorite mode of moral transportation to be the focus of a feature doc with a proven track record.

There are a few films new to the list and yet unrelated to a looming festival premiere, the most exciting of which is Robert Weide and Don Argott’s long in the making Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time.  33 years ago, Weide embarked on a journey to document the life and times of beloved American author Kurt Vonnegut, but as filming commenced on and off throughout the years, the film became harder to complete as the two became close friends and the production needed ever more money. As evidenced by the lovingly rendered teaser (below) that was recently released to promote the currently running Kickstarter campaign to complete the film, he’s collected a wealth of material to piece together an elegant, personal film. As of today, the filmmakers are still a bit short of their goal of $250,000, so consider kicking in a few bucks if this piques your interest at all.

As mentioned previously, for those attached to any of the docs mentioned below — please feel free to share any updates on the status of your projects. I can be reached at jordan [at] ioncinema dot com. Newly expanded, here is our most anticipated Top 100 docs in the pipeline.

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